


Equivalence

by RenaRoo



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 04:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5115974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenaRoo/pseuds/RenaRoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[FMA AU] Carolina is an ambitious alchemist of the military with an eye toward changing the military state right from under their noses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Equivalence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ephemeraltea (temporarily_obsessed)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporarily_obsessed/gifts).



> Prompt: ( ephemeraltea ) So imagine an FMA au with the RvB characters. And/or visa-versa
> 
> A/N: Tea used CROSSOVER. It was SUPER EFFECTIVE

Even as a young girl, Carolina remembered a fascination with the idea that everything was in motion. 

She would lay in the middle of the fields by their home on the most windless days, lay flat on her stomach, and watch _everything_ around her, trying desperately to see movement from the most immobile of things. 

When her father finally learned what she was attempting to do, he explained that seeing all things in motion -- seeing atoms and molecules and more actually turning and vibrating and phasing through one another -- was not actually possible. That these theories and understandings of matter were something she had to picture in her mind.

“That,” he would explain with her on his lap, candle lit over his strewn across research notes, “is where alchemy also becomes _art_.”

Carolina remembered putting a hand on the worn paper notes, breathing in the numbers and letters and symbols her father drew.

“Can alchemy make the world move faster?” she asked.

“No, just differently,” he answered softly. “Carolina, do you know the rules of alchemy? What I, as an alchemist, must understand are the limits of our science?”

She shook her head once. 

Adjusting himself, her father looked more directly into her eyes. “Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. In order to obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy’s First Law of Equivalent Exchange.”

Carolina huffed. “Can I use alchemy?”

“Only with training and studying,” he said seriously. “Though, I believe your mother would be relieved you don’t want to be a soldier.”

Carefully looking over her father’s notes, Carolina decided she could do _both._

* * *

War and loss broke several promises. And several laws. 

The first was the promise that Carolina and her father held with each other -- and to her mother -- that they would put each other first above all.

The second was to the laws of Alchemy. And the moral standards the government held for those who were schooled as Alchemists. 

Her father was taken away afterward. She watched as he was removed, and she cleaned the horrible room afterward.

There was something taken from her father after his failed attempt to transmute human life, but they never told Carolina -- too young, they thought, too innocent -- what it was. 

She didn’t need too much time to guess that it was his heart. 

She continued studying.

Then she enlisted.

* * *

Her mission required more than herself. It required a team -- a team she could trust, people who were the best at what they did, who were loyal, but specifically who she could trust to be loyal to herself. 

And that took her _years_ to master. 

York leaned over her shoulder as she sketched out her plans one by one in a language too dead for anyone not fiercely studied in the subject to have been able to read.

“Am I at the top?” he asked jokingly.

“Of course not,” she lied simply. “I need someone _useful_ at their job by my side.”

He clicked his tongue against his teeth but didn’t joke beyond that. 

Carolina looked across the office, to the desks of the soldiers she had transferred in, the recruits she had trained herself, those the government had placed under her purposefully.

She needed her top people, the ones who would be her most trusted, to not be loyal to the military. But she also needed someone who was not loyal to her.

She needed soldiers loyal to a greater good, to the people of their country, and who would stop Carolina for their own good should it ever be necessary.

For a moment, her pen began to stroke out York’s name, but she hesitated. 

She marked through it and then put the names of her team in proper order again.

 _Connie_ was scribbled beneath her own name. 

* * *

Carolina stared holes into the man. He was so familiar -- so _similar_ \-- that it made her almost visibly sick. Washington, her newest recruit, moved forward as if to catch her. She waved one warning hand toward him and moved forward.

The soldier -- a private, like all the rest currently stationed at Central’s wall posts -- blinked in surprise at her. 

“You,” she said darkly. “Who are you?”

Not much of a soldier, he wavered on his feet, looked to his side where the second private merely shrugged in response. 

“Dude, just answer,” the second cadet finally whispered, moving out of position just enough to elbow his friend. It seemed to just make the private choke again. 

“Answer me,” Carolina demanded. 

Washington was looking at her as if she had lost her mind. “Um. Colonel--”

“I’m... Church,” he said, blinking wildly. “Private Leonard Church. Eh. Ma’am. Sir. Uhhhh....”

“Have you lost your mind?” the second private hissed.

Carolina narrowed her eyes. “Who gave you that name?”

Church blinked. “I’d assume my mother--”

“You’d _assume_ , Private?”

“I don’t know. My father?” he snapped back. “What do you want, lady?”

Carolina glared at him. She whipped her hand forward, grabbing the man’s wrist and turning it up despite his vocal protest. She glared at the ouroboros brazen across his skin in red. “Are you an alchemist?”

“Fuck, no,” he said, jerking his hand back the second she let go. “I just... it’s the same my girlfriend has--”

“Is _she_ an alchemist?” Carolina pressed.

“She’s _something else_ , I’ll tell ya that much,” he snorted.

Carolina glared at him. “Your squad? Two-hundred squats tomorrow. I’ll be taking over your training,” she hissed, earning the groan and snarls of the entire line.

She turned sharply on her heels and walked back toward the blinking Washington. 

“Um... Colonel?” he asked, unassured.

“He’s too young anyway,” Carolina said darkly to herself as she continued on her way.

* * *

Not only were they onto her, but they had stripped her of her team. Moving her out into the far reaches of the rural wasteland, Carolina supposed her ambitions were supposed to wither and die. 

If anything, they had only made her more sure, more determined. 

Even if the soldiers under her command in the middle of nowhere were far from great conversationalists. 

She looked down from her office window, planning for her next move when she noticed some of the fresher soldiers stopped short of the patrol wall to the facility. Carolina scowled a bit and opened the window to yell at them only to overhear something that bordered on, and arguably missed, profundity. 

Private Simmons’ head turned toward his usual partner and, casually, pressed, “Hey. You ever wonder why we’re here?”


End file.
